Politics

Politics is in the air just now. When is it not?

A typical piece of advice from the Survival Guide For Dishonest Political Bastards

I’ve been thinking of all the votes I’ve cast during my 85 years. Suddenly I found myself hunting up this list of dubious political statements, possibly to help my fellow voters make better judgements. So there we are. Look what I’ve found.

WORDS THAT LINGER – AND FINGER

If you are going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don’t ever lie. Richard Nixon April, 1973 advice to a colleague.

No way will the GST be part of our policy. Never ever; it’s dead. John Howard in 1995, one year before he was elected and a little later introduced the GST.

I don’t want in Australia people who would throw their own children into the sea. I don’t. There’s something for me incompatible between somebody who claims to be a refugee and somebody who would throw their own child into the sea. It offends the natural instincts of protection and delivering security and safety to your children. John Howard, 2001.

A number of people that jumped overboard and have had to be rescued, and more disturbingly a number of children have been thrown overboard. I regard these as some of the most disturbing practices that I have come across in the time that I have been involved in public life, clearly planned and premeditated. I imagine the sorts of children who would be thrown would be those who could be readily lifted and tossed without any objection from them. Minister Philip Ruddock, 2001.

Fiction Proven Stranger Than Truth!

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewenski. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false. And I’m going to go back to work for the American people. Thank you. President Bill Clinton, 26 January, 1998.

Hussein … spends his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies. Madeline Albright, Nov. 10, 1999Clinton Secretary of State.

The takeover of South Vietnam would be a direct military threat to Australia and all the countries of South and South-East Asia. It must be seen as a part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. R G Menzies, 1965. Really!

It is good contextual information; it can’t be used as league tables. Julia Gillard in March, 2017 on the NAPLAN test.

The nineteenth century American Party, also known as the Know- Nothing Party because members were forbidden to reveal its details, has echoes in our present world.

The Know-Nothing Platform 1856

(1) Repeal of all Naturalisation Laws.

(2) None but Americans for office.

(3) A pure American Common School system.

(4) War to the hilt on political Romanism.

(5) Opposition to the formation of Military Companies, composed of Foreigners.

(6) The advocacy of a sound, healthy and safe Nationality.

(7) Hostility to all Papal influences, when brought to bear against the Republic.

(8) American Constitutions & American sentiments.

(9) More stringent & effective Emigration Laws.

(10) The amplest protection to Protestant Interests.

(11) The doctrines of the revered Washington.

(12) The sending back of all foreign paupers.

(13) Formation of societies to protect American interests.

(14) Eternal enmity to all those who attempt to carry out the principles of a foreign Church or State.

(15) Our Country, our whole Country, and nothing but our Country.

(16) Finally – American Laws, and American legislation; and death to all foreign influences, whether in high places or low!

South Vietnam would become a Communist State, and the lives and security of millions who have resisted Communism would be in jeopardy.

The impact of our complete withdrawal, as proposed by the Labor Party, would be felt throughout South-East Asia. We, too, would come under threat. Harold Holt, 1966 – election speech.

In the actions we have now taken we are not concerned to stop Egypt, but to stop war. None the less, it is a fact that there is no Middle Eastern problem at present which could not have been settled or bettered but for the hostile and irresponsible policies of Egypt in recent years, and there is no hope of a general settlement of the many outstanding problems in that area so long as Egyptian propaganda and policy continues its present line of violence. Anthony Eden, 31 October 1956 justifying the disastrous Suez invasion.

Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders? I have it in me to be a successful soldier. I can visualise great movements and combinations. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1914 aged 40, just before he initiated the disaster of Gallipoli.

*****

To end on a lighter note I conclude this little exposé with a reference to political words of a different kind: creative abuse. I have found no better exponent than

Paul Keating.

Peter Costello was “all tip and no iceberg”, Andrew Peacock an “intellectual rust-bucket”, and Wilson “Iron Bar” Tuckey a “stupid, foul-mouthed grub”. He famously called his 1993 opponent John Hewson, “a feral abacus” with a performance “like being flogged with warm lettuce”, and in saying to him “I want to do you slowly”, delivered a taunt that still echoes in the dark corridors of the Australian political imagination. Keating may have lost the election to Howard in 1996 but one suspects that Keating’s special brand of spoken bastardry will endure beyond any memory of Howard’s words. What, after all, do a majority of votes matter, when your opponent has described you to history as a “mangy maggot”, “the old desiccated coconut”, “araldited to the seat” and a “dead carcass, swinging in the breeze”?

So there you have it; just my little collection of political dalliances with the truth, garnished with some Keating sauce. I hope I haven’t given you indigestion. R.

_________________________________________

Some years ago I tried to do something about all of this deception. I wrote the little book below. It was the subject of two interviews on the ABC and raised a laugh there and at other places.

It was fun to write. Greg Gaul is a masterly cartoonist who caught my ideas so cleverly.

One of many cartoons in the book

I have also given it to some political friends with a waiver saying they did not need it. If you want a copy, there are still some left. The price is $12.50 AU author signed and posted free anywhere in the world. If you want it, just press the PayPal button.

Survival Guide

Tongue in cheek advice to would be politicians to ensure their survival in the present day political climate.

The Roman Empire is not what it used to be. In fact, it doesn’t exist anymore. Why is this so? The answer: because idiots destroyed it.

Exceptionalism in Rome Was Based Merely On Symbols.

Ancient Romans were constantly urged to make Rome great. One idolised symbol used in this process: the fasces. This was an imperial token of power carried by lictors in front of magistrates. It was a bundle of sticks including an axe with its handle visible, indicating uncontrolled power over life and death. A lictor was a Roman CIA type who was a bodyguard. He had absolute power. Absolute power corrupts as the loot will lie.

Expand or die was the cry. The numbskull Roman reasoners fostered the corporate greed of patrician families and ignored all social service needs of the poor. Ruthless Roman creditors had free reign with massive interest and power over debtors. Political life was thus dominated by the patrician nerd 1% – the greedy corporate clans promoting a truly decadent social agenda. Empty-headed Emperors minted their own coins stamped with their own beautified images and used them as mere propaganda tools. The aim was to lift the rulers’ fictitious status and highlight their wealth and importance. The ancient Roman economy was thus often unstable. Airhead Emperors also funded attention-getting imperial projects such as public building works, or fostered costly wars whose dead heroes were lavishly praised to encourage more young men to die bravely when needed.

Roman Money Was The Route Of All Evil.

﻿For no deity is held in such reverence amongst us as Wealth; though as yet, O baneful money, thou hast no temple of thine own; not yet have we reared altars to Money in like manner as we worship Peace and Honour, Victory and Virtue ― Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires

Take for instance Marcus Licinius Crassus (Born c. 115 BCE—died 53 BCE). He was a real estate agent of great wealth who inherited grandly from his father. He spoke blandly in small, unprovable epithets, and had a sex scandal in his CV. A key source of his wealth and power was his entrepreneurialism – much copied in his time. Also an ability to wage war we now know was part of his earning capacity as well as his political influence. In 60 BCE Crassus formed a powerful Trust with Pompey and Caesar to create the powerful corporation FTI (First Triumvirate Inc.) Crassus entered this expansive coalition mainly to promote passing of laws helpful to his investment deals in Asia. It was seizure of power by a corporate cabal. To cap all his self interest the fool eventually got himself killed in a battle.

The Emperor simpleton Hadrian ordered in Britain a wall in 117 C E. It took three Roman Legions — or 15,000 men — six years to complete. 300 years later, in 410 CE, the Romans were gone. Today what’s left of the wall anachronism is a tourist site. In knucklehead Hadrian’s day the pretentious divider was 73 miles long, three meters wide and six plus meters high. All you needed to do however, to make it useless, was walk 74 miles.

Greedy Fools Built Vast Stadiums For Profit Plus Spectacle.

Airhead patrician corporations built them for conspicuous glory. They gathered popular teams of money-motivated, death-defying gladiators to fight for that glory. The violence raged accompanied by wild cheering in these giant arenas. The bonehead developers got money from huge passing parades of spectators. In the contests, losing was death and disgrace. Winning was fame and riches. The word arena derives from the Roman word for sand – the sand that was strewn in the fighting places to soak up the blood. The Colosseum held up to 80,000 rapt Romans. Now, like other similar buildings, it is constantly empty.

Ancient Media Moguls Moulded Rome Towards An Ancient Doom.

Powerful morons helped the ancient society crumble as they manipulated and controlled public minds. For example, the Acta Senatus or minutes of the Senate meetings were kept in public libraries but could be examined by citizens other than Senators only with special permission. Indeed one dunderhead Emperor, Augustus, declared them “classified” and unavailable to the general, mind-dead public. This effectively kept the truth from the masses. A brainless head of state thus promoted social ignorance and ultimate decay.

Jackass Roman Industrialists Polluted Water, Air And Soil.

This happened especially with the aqueduct construction industry. Jobs with the greedy building moguls were scarce and wages were low, in particular with waste-disposal services. For buildings not linked to a drainage system, a lowly paid worker had to collect waste in clay pots and later sell the pots to farmers. Many plebeians were thus virtual slaves, helping other real slaves to do dirty work. Obviously age did not weary many of these workers.

Declamatory Dunces Of Ancient Rome Worshipped Coal.

Roman priests used to burn Britain’s coal using the extra heat to honour Minerva, their beloved goddess of wisdom and military triumph. Shady later social conmen continued the worship of coal for financial reasons. The crumbling effect on civilisations has been the same.

Idiot War Mongers Caused The Decline And Fall Of Rome.

Normally a narcissistic male, each halfwit Emperor waged un-winnable wars that deprived the nation of its youth and denarii. Typically the moron believed he was always right. He promptly put to death any critic and spoke in short, easily remembered sentences like, “I came; I saw; I conquered” to stay within the population’s attention span.

Coda: Words Of A Sane General

Modern wisdom that echoes down the ages

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 16, 1953

Author’s Note: Any comparisons with crumbling civilisations other than Rome should be taken with a grain of saltpeter. Royciebaby

Been away for a while because I fell down an escalator. Glad to be back.

Here’s a little piece I wrote with one usable hand. Will be fit again soon.

PROVERBS BEYOND REPAIR

A TOTAL MISCELLANY

CONTRIVED BY

Royce Levi

Where the loon sits there sit I
Under the moon
And a blighted sky
The words I hear
Are a twisted notion writhing in air
With appropriate commotion

Once upon a commotion a principle was born: Pay the Rich To Feed the Poor. The result was jobs for the snobs.

Pump A. Nickel was not a snob. He was a human rhetorician smitten with an itch that turned into a twitch. The twitch occurred in his funeral orations after every three sentences. Poor soul. That twitch sapped his strength.

O so tired was Pumpy! Sleep it is a blessed thing beloved from post to post. He dozed off unwillingly while sheltering in a coffin and was buried in the dead centre. Look before you sleep.

“If at first you don’t exceed, buy, buy, buy again,” said the Right Honourable Pierre Terpsichore-a-Stare. Prime ministers dance vulnerable dances. Dance for your daddy my little laddie you shall have a penny when the vote comes in.

Dancing got the better of Terpsichore. Depression set in. A person is known by the corporation he keeps. A profit is not recognised in his own land. True. Pierre Terpsichore-a-Stare is voted out of office at the next election.

Is the climate really changing? Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool that to speak and remove all doubt. Duty is in the eye of the beholder. Old King Coal was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he. Anthracite! He’s got the hole world in his hands. Dig me grey-beard loon? Yes. Cheats ever prosper if they have a lobbyist.

“Grime doesn’t pay,” said the scientist. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” said the sceptic. “It never rains but it pours,” said the weatherman. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” said the denier. The wise owl said, “Let the punishment fit the grime.” It did. A dirty society gets its just deserts.

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as arboriculture. Money makes the world go round. Money doesn’t grow on trees so cut them down for profit. The unkindest cut of all. How green was my valley is what the chain saw. I’ll drink to that. Absinth makes the heart grow fonder. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die in drought induced wildfires or destructive floods. A load of scrap.

Political axiom: Don’t put all your eggs in the one bastard. The Senate has rejected another bill. East is east, and west is west and never the bandwagons shall meet. Still, it’s better to have shoved and lost than never to have shoved at all. A friend in greed is a friend in need. All’s well that bends well. An eye for an eye and a truth for the booth.

Border protection. All you need is hate. All’s fair in love and war. Banners maketh the man. Old soldiers never die, only young ones. Do undo others as they you would undo. Do as I say, not as I do. War kills babies; a poor workman always blames his tools so don’t throw the bathwater out with the babies.

Any sport in a storm. CEOs of cricket need to agonise young men to keep the sponsors happy. And many a mickle makes the Chief’s muckle. One good term deserves another. The road to Hell is paved with free to air intentions. Money is the route of all evil. Slime goes by so slowly and slime can mean so much advertising. A nerd in the hand is worth two in the bush. That my friends is a woebegone conclusion.

Like this:

Poems Through A Glass Starkly

A Word On The Yellow Press

That picture above of the Yellow Kid is linked to the reason we have the current term “Yellow Press.” The cartoon character was the creation of Richard Fenton Outcault who was working in the 1890s in the United States for the extremely racist media mogul Joseph Pulitzer and his New York World. Outcault with his narrative cartoon style is generally regarded as the beginner of newspaper comics.

The Kid was an overtly shallow and uneducated character and spoke in a kind of uneducated and “immigrant” language. One key aim: denigration. Pulitzer would have been pleased with the colour yellow as he had an intense hatred of Chinese, especially the mid-nineteenth century gold seekers. The head of the Kid was shaved, a common sight in that age of head lice, and he wore a nightshirt that was an inheritance from a sister and on which were written strange, attention getting statements that many thousands of readers took delight in.

Now the story of the Yellow Kid or, to give him his appointed name Mickey Dugan, has a quite startling relevance to our contemporary lives. His adventures were set in a New York Slum – Hogan’s Alley – in a time of widespread poverty and vast social and racial tension. These exploits captured the interest of a multitude. Newspapers largely without real news suddenly were beginning to make a profit – a big profit. Two pennies bought Mickey; to Hell with thinking about worldly matters!

The Yellow Kid was very significantly a distraction from vital news. He sold newspapers and helped change Pulitzer’s insignificant rag into a goldmine of 300,000 circulation. Arm in arm with rape and murder and scandal and war the Kid helped set a news-media pattern that still exists all around us today. The task for Pulitzer and Hearst was not to educate with true, important information but rather to present news selectively and fill the gaps with non sequiturs. That meant attract attention in your market in any way you can.

So today, when chosen samples of worthless and sensational trivialities seize our time and create a vast ignorance of reality, the name”Yellow Press” is relevant. Mickey Dugan and his world live on.

Randolf Hearst saw the yellow light and stole Outcault from Pulitzer with a higher salary. The Yellow Kid remained the property of Pulitzer (verified by court decision) but another colour achieved similar objectives. But the diversion from reality continued. Other distractions like Buster Brown flourished.

Here is Buster.

In contrast to the Yellow Kid, Buster Brown was good looking. Buster Keaton at the time was a child actor so the name was popular. The character was drawn first for Pulitzer but when Outcault transferred to Hearst the character went too as another circulation booster for Pulitzer’s former protege and then his rival. Buster appeared for both magnates but a court decision forbade the use of the name by Hearst. Hearst created many more circulation boosting comic figures. Let us not be too hard on the comics as a distraction. They often entertain after all. It’s non stop murder, rape, scandal and violence including war subject matter that need a line to be drawn. The saddest line of all is always a Siegfried line. What have the media done recently to stop wars?

Some Recent Thoughts

Regarding that poem, education ministers and administrators should remember that the students below the test mean are half our future.

***

There are some challenges for teachers with that failing group of students that objective attainments tests do nothing for. The test psychosis in the minds of political administrators just now is courting disaster. I am not saying we don’t need tests. Test teach retest reteach has got to be part of every teacher’s program. What I am against is the tyranny of haloed attainments tests over everything else.

All my best wishes to the teachers of today. I am compassionate and proud that I understand ( to a large extent) what huge sacrifices you make and what difficulties you face.

How can we do justice to the importance of words?

We speak. We listen. We write. We read. In all my teaching years I have tried to tell my students that with these deeds we can change the world.

There was a Chinese saying I often shared with those students:

I hear what you say but I see what you do.

Now this leads me towards one human category of power, politics. Politicians’ words and actions have had a vast influence on my life down the years into my eighth decade. They have inspired me, disgusted me, helped me, hurt me, led me to war, brought me brief peace, dismissed me and often flowed from kneeling figures begging for my vote.

Now have you noticed how frequently honourable members use the expression “the bottom line”? It’s an expression taken from profit and loss accounting and I believe it came into first real use c. 1967. I was alive then but, as with so many other things, it was not part of my detailed understanding. But oh my! Do I notice it now?

So many things are “monetised,” to use the YouTube category. Money is the route of all weasels. Education is not vital. The real problem is can we afford it? Same for health, including research. As for climate. Well. Old King Coal was a merry old sole (sic).

And all those weasel words are of extreme importance if you are into shady deals. We now know, for example, the terminology used by the gods of the Watergate affair. Some interesting examples: “correct endeavour,” “correctly impede,” “correct motive,” “political containment.” Each of these we can now recognise in the context of Watergate as a euphemism disguising culpable behaviour.

Another discovery from that time is the presidential coaching of accused staff for survival in the courtroom. These were some of those words: “I don’t remember;” “I can’t recall;” “do not volunteer anything;” “deal only with established facts.”

Two other expressions come into mind as well: “classified” and “business confidentiality.” I have seen “classified” countless times in my lifetime. One example will do. Information on the Phoenix Program was classified during the Vietnam War. We now know that this secretive scheme was responsible for the massacre of at least 20,000 Vietnamese civilians during that war.

What of business confidentiality? I have no real evidence here. Therefore it would be wrong of me to make unsubstantiated claims. But I feel justified in making the following comment. In the light of human misdemeanours documented throughout history, is it not reasonable to ask for something more than a label “business confidentiality” when misbehaviour could be possible?

I feel pretty sure that some of my readers will know more clearly what I mean and even have access to tangible evidence to set the truth free . . .
https://royce1232.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/blower.m4aAh me! Despite my advanced maturity, my glass is still half full. I just wish proof would be easier to find. Life would be far better if we could trust the powerful.

Words.

Loaded pistols said Sartre. Powerful drugs said Kipling.

Yes, the true meanings of words seem to vary in these recent times. So-called “truth” constantly needs further investigation. This little piece of fiction plays around with that idea.

Dr Yorec Veil

Doctor Veil is a former citizen of Elysium, in the Land Of Two Rivers. Born in hard times within a country where university study was mostly no more than a poverty stricken dream, he broke free of pauperdom by winning scholarships. His rise in Academia was rapid and distinguished, leading him to several teaching posts and awards.

Sadly his former university was destroyed in the Iraq invasion of 2003. Fortunately for mankind he survived and is now a distinguished staff member at Hope University in Brazil. His works and philosophy are now part of a broad canvas.

His most recent missives follow.

***

Now Some Non-fiction From Me

Weasel words are the words of the powerful, the treacherous and the unfaithful, spies, assassins and thieves. . . To speak the words the powerful speak is to obey them, or at least to give up all outward signs of freedom. Don Watson (205 p.1).

I want to share with you some weasel examples. Maybe it will help to explain my contempt.

Once, when applying for a job teaching English to migrants, I asked a CEO if there was a predominant approach to the teaching of essay writing. I needed to know if genre writing was used as well as or instead of traditional methods.

The reply was very brief: world’s best practice. Now what did that answer do for me, a professional seeking to do his job well? Did it mean: “I want to test you not me so I will tell you nothing” ? Did it mean: “I am ignorant actually, so I will use this high sounding language of emptiness to cover my tracks”? Or was that CEO simply under the influence of Edward Bernays, trying to control me with Bernaysian manufactured consent ?

You decide. As for me, I did not get that job and went to teach in a university where it was a little harder to cover up the truth. Not always impossible though.

When leaders fire weasel words at us we have a problem. Don Watson sums up weasel power pretty well regarding President Bush, The Younger, and Prime Minister Howard.

Our two leaders have sucked the meaning out of the words . . . They are shells of words: words from which life has gone, facsimiles, frauds, corpses. (loc.cit.)

Like this:

Down the ages children have endured pain and suffering for many reasons. Today, as a consequence of bungling and crude reasons for detention, covered up abuse, poverty in postcodes, and heinously accurate weapons of mass destruction used deliberately with sham excuses against thousands in civilian populations, the trauma and anguish of children tears us even further apart.

This brief post is only a little cry against the anguish inflicted. Butterflies wings in a tempest probably. But the tiny fluttering may start a small breeze. Nothing never happens.

Now here is a law passed by a democratically elected government:

The protection of the frontiers of the Reich, and with them the life of our Volk and the existence of our economy, is now in the hands of our Reichswehr which, in accordance with the terms imposed upon us by the Treaty of Versailles, can be regarded as the only really disarmed force in the world. In spite of its small size prescribed therein and its totally insufficient arms, the German Volk can regard its Reichswehr with proud satisfaction. This slight instrument of our national self-defense came into existence under the most difficult conditions. In its spirit, it is the bearer of our best military traditions.

Those reading this who, like me, were alive during World War II, will understand my attitude to that particular law. Of many more examples, I choose just one more:

1640 — 1660: The Critical Period: Custom to Law when Status Changed to “Servant for Life”

1639/40 – The General Assembly of Virginia specifically excludes blacks from the requirement of possessing arms

1642 – Black women are deemed tithables (taxable), creating a distinction between African and English women.

1662 – Blacks face the possibility of life servitude. The General Assembly of Virginia decides that any child born to an enslaved woman will also be a slave.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

So far I have lived twenty-three years longer than Shakespeare. Oh my! What he would have done with that extra time.

As for humble me, I have noticed so many dark deeds in my eighty odd years I will feel guilty unless I at least draw attention to some of them now. That is why I am writing this.

That looking glass of mine still seems to be getting darker and darker. All my years of teaching and that infinity of classrooms have created so much data.

I feel driven just now to talk about the shadows that worry me. Are you familiar with Plato’s Cave? That sums up the way I feel pretty well. So many people in my life have announced THE answer to so many things. One of my problems is that I have seen so many unexpected changes I am beginning to wonder if you can be sure of anything.

Is uncertainty the only certainty? But wait a minute. If my answer is “yes,” how can you be certain about the certainty of my answer? My brain needs a rest. Contact with these four heroes of mine might help you understand what I am trying to say: Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing?

Please note therefore I’m into suggestions not certainties but possibly useful points of view here. For now, as I’ve said elsewhere, I focus on one cause of my anguish at a time. This is the second post in my list.

I am sick of all the sad news around me so I have decided to laugh a bit here.

The problem this time is

Things are not what they seem to be.

FAKE NEWS 4 SALE. MEDIA WHERE R U?

FROM OUR FOR REIGN CORRESPONDENT

I bought a bottle of grow-tall juice by Beanstalk Jack Inc. from my chemist last week I know it will work because I have seen breathtaking computer generated TV images to prove its effectiveness. Six foot six within my reach! I took my first dose this morning. Watch this outer space!

Midas Merten sold me a pair of Bullshit-detecting Reading Glasses for my 83rd birthday. Cost him a fortune I believe, although included was a pair of absolutely free Climate Change Sunglasses. Haven’t detected anything yet, as I read, but patients are a virtue.

Error-free pens are the latest craze in the US. They are just now poker machine prizes. A new age is approaching and it’s good buy to misspelling.

My dear wife has bought me a Truth-selecting Hearing-aid for our anniversary. So sweet of her! When I hear words of suspect truth, I notice the volume gets louder but it’s good to know lies won’t trouble me anymore.

That Anti-aging Potion I also bought from my chemist last week has caused me a bit of trouble. It’s a three times a day job with a free, precise measuring glass and a homogenised plastic spoon. The first day of treatment went very well but for the last few days I can’t remember where I put the bottle. Damn!

MORE FROM OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENT

How Political Schemes Do Come True

A dog has just been elected to the Australian Parliament after a long series of court battles. Citizen Canis, as his owners named him, was declared a valid, living being by the High Court and approved on constitutional grounds because dogs have not been specifically forbidden by law to occupy a seat in the House Of Representatives. The dog is functional. All it needs is one bark for yes and two barks for no. The new independent member for Black Tree wags his tail a lot. Frequent requests for support in divisions are usually backed up by gifts of export quality steak.

Citizens are advised that postage stamps are now, as the border enquiry suggests,

A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

“threatening our freedom and much envied way of life. Classified sources now reveal messages in stamped envelopes have been detected avoiding border security. This is a clear and present danger. All foreign stamps therefore will now be vetted by dedicated, well versed geologists. Please note that this may lead to delay of up to six months in delivery.”

The Treasurer has announced for tomorrow a state of the art plan to reduce costs and improve the lives of the aged and the disabled with a spectacular Budget switch. On this given date, all motor services for members will cease. Parliamentary vehicles and drivers’ roles will be be diverted to welfare service for the aged, incapacitated and dying. This will save as the needy will die off more quickly than politicians and so reduce costs and workload.Self-sustained member transport will be applied henceforth. Free bicycles will be issued. For the bicycle infirm, substitute three-wheeled scooters are planned. Long distance transport will, from this day forth, be by train only. All air transport is banned save for helicopters in a state of emergency. Overseas conferences are already missing from members’ agendas, interstate conferences will be fewer in number, and Skype and internet conferencing will become the new mode of travel.

Notice this. Bold steps have also been taken to reduce needed attention span in Parliamentary Question Time. Now, for both questions and answers, the number of words spoken will be limited to what can be stated in a single breath. Breath Detectors have been fitted to all microphones so that if a second breath is taken, a BD switch renders the member totally silent. An increase in the use of gestures has been noted. So too have the many Speaker demands to withdraw unparliamentary gesticulations.

In addition, we report that Standing Orders in the Parliament of Australia have been privatised. The Speaker now has digital support, at a small taxpayer-funded cost, for all judgements. Notable is the Question Time Relevance Monitor. Now, whenever an answer strays from the topic, a whistle blows and a QTRM recorded voice will say loudly, “Tell the truth you devious scam artist.” Disruption has already become suddenly rare and speeches in reply are noticeably brief.

Last Comment: Ad Folk Regularly Advertise Confusion

I just don’t understand these things.

Because I am old and infirm, I don’t get out much. This means I depend on television for my awareness of the world and for advice on how to spend my meagre pension. As you can see, that is serious business. I have to concentrate hard to get things right.

That is the problem!

They keep saying things that don’t make sense. I am nearing an Adjustment Disorder with Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood over this. Big challenge in my extreme maturity!

Look. Here are some examples of what I mean.

I needed a new scrabble set because I’d lost Q. So I saw this advertisement

BUY ONE TODAY AND GET A SECOND ONE ABSOLUTELY FREE.

I contacted them and told them I’m pretty poor so I would just like the free one please. This caused an immense fuss as they said no. Well how about that! How can something be free if you have to buy something else to get it? So I’ve made a new scrabble rule. If you’ve got u and e, you’ve got q.

And then there was my wheelbarrow insurance.

I couldn’t afford to pay a lump sum so I spaced the cost into 12 monthly payments. Would you believe I broke an axle in January and they told me I could get only one twelfth of the value as I hadn’t paid for the whole year. They didn’t tell me that on the big blurb that got me in. Fabulists!

Now look what that has done to me. In one of those shops with good deals I saw a huge jar of hundreds and thousands marked SPECIAL. Now I’ve no surplus money for luxuries, but I decided on a cunning little plan to forgo toothpaste for a month and use salt to clean my teeth.

That was how I bought the great jar. That was why, when I opened it, I had another mixed anxiety and depressed mood outbreak. The jar was only half full. Jar size trickery. No thousands just hundreds. For some sad reason those pretty sandwiches I made were not delicious at all.

And now I must tell you about the Truth Converter I picked up at Vinnies for a song.

It works under the old AV system. I’ve kept my out of date AV recorders just for old times sake. When you’re 83, old times are important. Things fade away like the old Stanley Steamer don’t they, for various reasons, but they might still be useful one day. This one was.

This Truth Converter works for me! Only me.

I just plug the lead into the old AV recorder.

Look at these results. A mindblow! Look at what I fed in and what came out.

robust discussion … a vicious argument

responsible spending … gainful cuts to welfare

a deep trust alliance … all the way with LBJ

a finely balanced budget … any profitable asset sold

as soon as is practical … before the next election

within reasonable time … after the next election

telling the truth … agreeing with me

nothing but fake news … not agreeing with me

great prime minister … great at hiding the truth

There you are. What fun my little toy is! Only paid $1.50 for it. Can’t wait to get back to it.

Finally, to end this post, here’s a little piece I wrote.

Use-by Date

Once in a fit of ill-informed hate

Back in the mists of my time,

Somebody wrote the use-by date

When I would be past my prime.

Then, it was thought, my mind would decay

And the voice would lose its thrall.

Thus, even though I still seized each day,

No one would heed me at all.

It is true, now that I’ve seen a few years

And I’m often in need of a bed,

Some people don’t give me access to their ears

Or even a nod of the head.

But there’s always a trumpet with smiling face

Who will tell you he’s got a solution;

But alas he is crass, brain so far out of place

Any wise thought’s a true revolution.

Yet he’ll offer false dreams with lucrative schemes

To turn all your strife into money.

All that does for me is awaken my screams

As I hide his junk mail in a dunny.

It’s a lonely place this, with your energy spent,

Where half-truths will still come and go;

If you spend your last cent to dispense with the rent,

There are few other strings to your bow.

Yes here then am I, much older than most,

Foundering, some say, and dismasted.

You may feel that I’m past it, or even a ghost,

But I’m not a loot wizard’s snared bastard.

March 2004

A Loot Wizard

Thanks and respect to Howard Littlejohn

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Twitter is no longer a place for me.

That is all I have to say about that.

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